%$#&^ the Ruins and Seven Weeks of Good Luck!

We left Playa del Carmen after one night and three days...or so it seemed after spending one night in the bus station. You may say our trip to PDC was a fiasco or a menagerie, but it's best described as a hilarious adventure. It ended about how it started. One of the last things we did was allow Terry to make reservations for us in Tulum town for our next night when we would decide what to do/where to go next. 

We grabbed some breakfast and headed to the bus station - Tulum bound. I love the feeling of disembarking from the bus and making a walk with a backpack on my back. It feels young. We walked north through town and made a couple of turns to get to our hotel. It was nice. It was quaint. We were greeted by a very friendly 40-something female speaking English with a strong accent. She recognized our last names...from her home country. We all immediately felt a strong connection to her. Let me tell you now, luck was in our favor that Jana was from the Czech Republic and immediately liked all three of us. She tried to find our reservation, which she knew existed, because she had observed our last name on the reservation. Oh, but Terry had made our reservation for a Wednesday night instead of for Monday. And yes, it was Monday. She had no double room available. Well, she could upgrade us to the two-room, full kitchen, double mirador room for a small difference in the nightly price. And, the price we paid for the Wednesday would just be kept in tact with us in the penthouse until Thursday. Terry was exonerated! Enough said. 

We bought and didn't drop another bottle of whiskey, a bottle of wine, some beer, and Cheetos. After a late lunch of fish tacos and tostados, we spent a nice, relaxing evening on the mirador listening to sirens from the steady stream of those on the Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe pilgrimage.

We walked the 6 or so kilometers to Playa Paraiso the next day. The weather was perfect, the beer was cold, the mojitos were good, and dang all those cute, European girls on the beach in their thongs. For some reason, the male/female ration in Tulum always seems to run 2 females for every 1 male. Just an observation. David received a phone call concerning a minor wreck involving an aunt and an insurance claim from back home while sitting on the beach. He told the lady on the phone to please email him because he was on the beach in Mexico drinking beer and didn't think he would remember the conversation very well. You have to appreciate an honest man!  It was a taxi home, a seafood dinner with wonderful ceviche and nightcaps/lights out on the mirador. Yes, the sirens and pilgramages continued throughout the night. 

Back to Smoking the Cheap Cigars

We fully intended to go to the ruins in Tulum. They are quite impressive and the views from the bluff overlooking the Carribean are breath-taking. We didn't want to fight the crowds mid-day so Day 2 was spent on the beach where we intended to go to the ruins later in the day when the crowds returned to their cruise ships. After a few cold beers, mojitos and cute little Swedish girls, we knew it was hopeless when David blurted out " $#$#^ the Ruins!". I think he did actually Google them and look at a couple of breath-taking images online. OK, he did sort of see them. 

Internet Photo - THE RUINS WE DIDN'T SEE

So we lounged away the day at the beach with the most perfect weather ever and bought jewelry from Pepe, a soft-spoken, hard-bargaining Mayan that met his match when dealing with the Barato (cheap) Bohemian. I always say the Mayans can look into Terry's soul, and they see a very honest, good soul. Many times they have actually said this. Now I know it's true. When we got ready to leave the beach, Pepe stopped us and asked if we would please say a prayer with him. We repeated after him. He spoke in Spanish and we all recited together after him. Interesting because David does not know a word of Spanish yet he recited along with us, in Spanish...the most perfect Spanish a Bohemian can speak. Then, Pepe spoke a few of the words of the prayer in English. He had bestowed seven weeks of good luck upon all three of us. This was a serious moment.

Seven weeks? I don't know why and I'm not sure what happens after week seven. 

Seafood dinner, drinks on the mirador and bed for us. Tomorrow it will be six weeks and six days. 

The Barato Bumbling Bohemians

Yeah, Baby...those are real Cohibas!

First off, if you don't know what barato means...it means cheap. I'm talking cheap as in will walk a mile to save a peso, put three people in a room to save a few pesos, ride second-class buses because of the cost of a more expensive ADO ticket...you get the drift. 

So we get up this morning and recover from our bumbling night of Terry taking the wrong backpack off the bus, we didn't drink much last night because David dropped the two fifths of whiskey he had purchased duty-free at Houston Hobby, painstakingly carried through the CUN airport to the bus, on the bus, off the bus where the sack slipped through his fingers and both bottles shattered on the concreto while Terry was getting the wrong backpack off the bus. If you could have seen the luggage handler's face when he smelled that whiskey but could do nothing more than watch the puddle of liquid gold get bigger and bigger on the floor. It was priceless!

But this morning was different! We got a fairly good few hours of sleep even though the A/C in our room wasn't working. Can't have everything at this price, right? We ate a great breakfast and I headed back to the room for, you know, morning stuff. I turned these two barato bumbling Bohemians loose to go check out the cigars in a cigar shop. They were feeling full of machismo when we met back up because they had made the deal of the century on Cohiba cigars...not knock-offs, but real Cohibas from a nice humidor. They had each spent about $4USD/cigar...or $890/cigar in pesos. You do the math!!!

We're walking down Avenida Quinta and they're feeling all cocky showing me their Cohibas. We go a few blocks and all of a sudden David, the Chemical Engineer/teacher of college students realizes the mistake. These two barato, bumbling Bohemians just spent about $40USD each on a cigar!!! 

What started out as a nice morning just went south...they transitioned from being barato Bohemians to two guys throwing money around like it was beach sand. It's been about 3 hours since this happened and they are still trying to figure out how two smart, tight Bohemians made this mistake. I think it's cool because I'm pretty sure I'll get to go shopping and buy whatever I want just because they think they can give me "hush money" and I won't tell the world about their blunder!